mining: 25/50 of 117

To tackle its serious air pollution, China is imposing stringent restrictions on dirty coal high in ash or sulphur, writes Shabbir Ahmad. One result: half of Australia's coal exports to China face exclusion, or extra 'washing' costs. But Australia's response is not to raise environmental quality. Instead, it's increasing production.more...

OceanaGold is demanding $300 million in compensation from impoverished El Salvador after a mining permit was refused to safeguard a clean drinking water source that millions of people depend on, writes Pete Dolack. The sum does not even represent losses - but profits the company claims it would have made.more...

Sanctions against Russian natural resource tycoons could be good for the environment, writes eco-campaigner Konstantin Rubakhin - if only they would target the right people. But so far, the EU has been turning a blind eye to powerful Kremlin insiders with an open licence to pollute and destroy. more...

Ten years after promises of 'no mining' in Botswana's Central Kalahari Game Reserve, a $5 billion diamond mine opens a few miles from a Bushman village. Elsewhere in the Reserve, fracking is under way. And President Ian Khama, a director of Conservation International, denounces the Bushmen as 'poachers' and evicts them from their land.more...

Survivors of a previously unknown Amazon tribe have escaped gunmen in Peru, seeking refuge with settled indigenous communities in Brazil. But as Alice Bayer reports, their problems are far from over. Many remain under threat in Peru, and even the refugees are at risk of common but potentially lethal infections.more...

This month a tailings dam at the Mount Polley mine in BC breached, writes Carol Linnitt - spilling 14.5 billion litres of toxic mine waste into Quesnel Lake. A major source of freshwater and one of BC's premier fly-fishing destinations, the lake will never be the same again. But it's just the first big victim of Canada's wave of environmental de-regulation ...more...

In China's remote Mongolian region, indigenous herders are being forced from their traditional pastures to make way for roads and vast mining projects. Last week they held a public demonstration - but it was immediately dispersed with ten arrests.more...

If the state does not defend citizens against the violence and destruction of mining, people and communities must defend themselves, writes Raul Zibechi. And in Peru and Colombia that's exactly what they are doing, re-asserting indigenous control of the land and its resources.more...

Students, workers and civil rights activists gathered in their hundreds today in Delhi to protest at the mining company Vedanta, and the Indian government's support of highly destructive mining projects in forests and on indigenous peoples' lands.more...

As gold miners face eviction from Yanomami territory in the Brazilian Amazon, a rising tempo of death threats have been directed against the shaman Davi Kopenawa following his successful campaign.more...

Global mining giant Rio Tinto markets itself as a 'sustainable company', writes Kemal Özkan. But serious failures in its reporting, and its attempt to hold an Australian indigenous group to ransom, reveal a very different truth: the company is driven by a reckless pursuit of profit at any cost.more...

Ice core analysis shows that lead pollution in Antarctica took off in the 1880s as mining at Broken Hill, Australia, took off. Lead residues have fallen from their late 20th century peak, writes Joe McConnell - but they are still four times higher than in pre-industrial times.more...

mining: 25/50 of 117

Australia's nuclear industry has a shameful history of 'radioactive racism' that dates from the British bomb tests in the 1950s, writes Jim Green. The same attitudes have been evident in recent debates over uranium mines and nuclear waste, but Aboriginal peoples are fighting back!more...

Africa sustains some of the most spectacular ecosystems on the planet - from the Sergengeti to the Congo Basin to the Eastern Arc forests. But those ecosystems and their iconic wildlife are now facing their greatest peril, writes William Laurance - a mining boom of unprecedented intensity.more...

Next week the indigenous peoples of the Yukon challenge their Government in the Territory's Supreme Court, writes Jill Pangman. At issue, its plans to open the Peel watershed, a vast unspoilt ecosystem rich in wildlife and cultural meaning, for industrial development. more...

A remote corner of Sweden's Arctic forest has become a battleground, writes Alex Forss, over proposals for a huge iron mine that would occupy a key reindeer migration route. And with their cultural and economic survival under threat, it's a battle the Sami cannot afford to lose.more...

The government of president Evo Morales has approved a new mining law for Bolivia giving precedence to mining over other interests. It's proving highly divisive within the country - and indigenous communities are on the march to protect their rights to land, water and dignity.more...

Spain's Coto Doñana shows the value of EU conservation law, writes Laurence Rose, as the UK tries to get rid of the Birds and Habitats Directives. Both have proved essential to the protection and restoration of one of Europe's greatest wetlands.more...

Ecuador is facing an unprecedented confrontation between a 'progressive' left-leaning government and a national coalition of indigenous peoples determined to stop vast oil and mining projects taking place on their community land and villages.more...

Last October Greenland repealed a law that banned uranium mining. Now mysterious Australian mining companies are staking out the country for exploitation. But as Antony Loewenstein reports, local fears are growing, and political opposition is heating up.more...

Are we going to run out of minerals? That's the central question of a debate that has been raging for a couple of centuries, writes Ugo Bardi, when it first became clear that minerals are not life forms - and do not reproduce as we extract them from the Earth's crust.more...

The Amazon basin faces 'ecosystem collapse' according to a new report about hundreds of major dams and other mega-projects planned for the region - home to the world's greatest rainforest. David Hill reports.more...

Australian environmentalists have launched a lawsuit against plans to expand a coal port that threatens the Great Barrier Reef, writes Maxine Newlands. The approval came in spite of warnings from UNESCO and marine scientists that the Reef is already 'in danger'.more...

Left-wing, progressive politicians hold sway across Latin America, writes Benjamin Dangl. But defying their own 'green' rhetoric, they are committed to mining and other environmentally damaging development. Now they face growing resistance from small farmers and indigenous peoples.more...

Deep in Ecuador's Amazon rainforest, a gigantic open pit copper and gold mine is planned in the heart of the Shuar peoples' territory. David Dene tells the story of a growing international campaign to uphold and defend the 'Rights of Nature', in Ecuador and beyond.more...